Thomas J.J. Altizer’s Kenotic Christology and Buddhism

Abstract

At the second conference on East-West Religious Encounter, ‘Paradigm Shifts in Buddhism and Christianity’, held in Honolulu, January 1984, I delivered a paper entitled ‘Kenotic God and Dynamic Śūnyatā’. In that paper, referring to Paul’s christological hymn in Philippians 2: 5–11 I stated that the kenosis or self-emptying of Christ Jesus is a key notion expressing well the loving God in Christianity and providing a point of contact with the Buddhist notion of śūnyatā. At the same time I also stated that, properly speaking, the kenosis of the Son of God is inconceivable without the kenosis of God the Father. If God is truly the all loving God, He, God the Father, must be self-emptying. The kenosis of Christ has its origin in the kenosis of God. On the other hand, the Buddhist notion of śūnyatā should not be understood to indicate a static state of everything’s emptiness, but should be taken to signifythe dynamic activity of emptying everything including itself. Śūnyatā in Mahayana Buddhism is no less than formless emptiness taking form freely through emptying itself. My suggestion was that if we interpret the Christian notion of Christ’s kenosis and the Buddhist notion of Śūnyatā in such a way, Christianity and Buddhism would come to a point of much closer contact, not by losing their self-identities but rather through deepening their spirituality.